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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22744813">A Jedi's Path</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/averywritess/pseuds/averywritess'>averywritess</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Appropriate Use of the Force, Canon Compliant, Canon Divergence - Star Wars Expanded Universe, Canon Universe, Cliffhangers, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Friends to Enemies, Gen, Jedi, Lightsaber Battles, Lightsabers, Ossus (Star Wars), Platonic Relationships, Post-Canon, Star Wars References, The Dark Side of the Force, The Force</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 04:48:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,643</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22744813</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/averywritess/pseuds/averywritess</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
      <p>My friend had asked me if I wanted to have a small writing competition where the only prompt was that there had to be a lightsaber battle. I had a lot of fun writing this piece. This is my first real attempt at writing for Star Wars so any comments or suggestions are greatly appreciated!</p>
    </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Star Wars</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Jedi's Path</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>My friend had asked me if I wanted to have a small writing competition where the only prompt was that there had to be a lightsaber battle. I had a lot of fun writing this piece. This is my first real attempt at writing for Star Wars so any comments or suggestions are greatly appreciated!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She slashed through his skin.</p><p>He let out a wail of pain as the blade ran down his leg, ripping into him. She retreated back, standing far away. Watching steadily as her cloak flapped in the wind behind her. She lowered her saber, waiting for him to get off the ground where he lay clutching his leg. Blood gushed from it almost as thick and red as the weapon she held in her hand.</p><p>They had a <em>complicated</em> history. They had grown up together, training as Jedi under the same master. They had discovered the many ways of the force together. All the beautiful things that it could contain. The incredible abilities that they would discover they had as a result of their force sensitivity. They felt the pull to the light and the darkness that always rose to meet it, drawing them back to the middle. A balance. As they had been taught to follow all those moons ago. Now, these longtime friends stood before each other, lightsabers in hand, ready to kill the other.</p><p>He stood, face scrunching up in pain as he tried to put weight on his leg.</p><p>“Just forfeit already. It’s over for you.” Her voice struggled to drown out the wind whipping across the red sands of Ossus, echoing as it reached the mountainous cliffs that surrounded them.</p><p>He glared at her, saber shining a brilliant green that reflected back on his face as he raised it’s hilt into fighting position, ready to sink its fiery edge into her flesh.</p><p>“Never,” he screamed back at her, voice tense with fury.</p><p>In a second, she raised her weapon and charged him, feet trying not to slip on the sand. The distance between them was closing, he had to think fast. He reached out with the force, immediately sensing the rage that was barreling towards him. He looked beyond that, trying to sense the light. He found it as she was upon him, weapon in mid-swing. He pulled at his end of the force, and raised his hand, freezing her in the air.</p><p>It had worked! Finally! All the times he had tried this move back in training it always failed him. This was his chance.</p><p>He paused as the thoughts registered. His chance to do what? Kill her? Had that been their end goal this entire time? He knew he could never forgive himself if he had killed one of his oldest friends. He thought harder, trying to decide what to do with the figure that was still solidified before him.</p><p>He raised his lightsaber, stepping closer to her to make sure she heard every word of what he said. He tried his best to look as forceful as possible, walking through his limp caused by the river of blood oozing from him. His features hardened as he stared at her. She stared back, unmoving, refusing to wriggle under his grasp on her. Instead, cold hatred overtaking her eyes.</p><p>“You’re going to leave this place,” he tried using his force manipulation but the walls she had built up around her mind were solid steel and he couldn't break through, no matter how hard he tried. He stepped closer as he began to speak, now inches away from her. “You’re going to get back on your fighter, and you’re going to get the hell out of Ossus.” He loosened his grip on her, allowing her to move slightly. “Is that clear?” he continued, voice still grounded in fortitude. He had always been a little too bold for his own good.</p><p>Her eyes pierced into him, allowing him to feel the weight of the resentment she felt towards at him. He started to wonder how they had ever been friends in the first place. Her mouth twisted up, preparing to let the words escape from her mouth, instead releasing a splatter of spit right onto his face.</p><p>His rage blinded him as he reacted on instinct. He slashed his blade across her leg in the same manner she had done to him, leaving them with identical gaping wounds. The eyes that had once been filled with hatred closed tightly, trying not to show her pain. He dropped his grip on her, letting her fall to the ground.</p><p>The world spun around her. The moons and suns seemingly sped up, circling her head many times before she regained her strength. She gathered all of the vitality left within her, pulling herself up off the ground, face contorting at the pain that seared through her leg. Her blood leaked out onto the sands, blending into its angry hue. Her jaw clenched in an attempt to hide her pain as she limped her way up to him. Why had he even come here? She was happy, living peacefully until this sorry excuse for a Jedi had brought himself back. What did he want with her? He always had to do something to ruin her life. And this definitely wouldn't be the first time.</p><p>He sensed her thoughts- the confusion directed towards his arrival.</p><p>“You know why I’m here,” he answered. “I want to start over. All of it.” He paused, sensing once again her perplexity grow alongside her continuous anger. “I want you to help me.”</p><p>She repeated his earlier retort, “Never,” with a knife-like gaze that carved open his soul. In her mind, she was ripping him apart limb by limb. “I will never help you destroy my people.”</p><p>“Is that what you really think of me after all these years?” His features fell as her glare confirmed his question. She hated him. Not just friendship hate, but pure unfiltered spite. “You know, we used to be friends once.”</p><p>“How could I be friends with someone who wants to destroy my people? This is my home and if you think you can just show up here, asking me to betray them…” she paused, letting her words sink in. “Then you’re stupider than I thought.” Her words bit into him, ripping away at the shreds of their friendship that he still held onto.</p><p>“You’re the queen of this place!” He snarled at her. “You have the power to inflict real change and you sit here doing nothing!”</p><p>“Just because I refuse to throw everything away for an old training buddy does not mean I do nothing for my people. I would give the world to save them.”</p><p>“The Jedi were your people too!” he shouted accusingly. “By not helping us, you’ve betrayed us. <em>Again</em>.”</p><p>His words stung her. She had given up everything for the Jedi Order until she had nothing left to give up anymore. She had lost all her family, her sanity, even now, her last friend for the Jedi. Tears rolled down her cheek at the memories that came swelling back. She fell back to the ground, pain traveling up from her leg and settling to live in her heart.</p><p>He limped up to her, crouching down to speak to her as she sobbed on the ground. He placed a hand on her shoulder. The comforting gesture of an old friend.</p><p>“Help me, Jade,” he said, tone much softer now. “Help me rebuild the Jedi Academy.” He stuck his hand out to her, stretching it out in a symbolic deal.</p><p>Hundreds of years ago, the Jedi Order had flourished on Ossus before the Sith resurged, wiping out the Jedi that inhabited the planet. It had taken years to get her citizens to trust her enough to elect her queen. They wanted nothing to do with the Jedi Order as it previously had only brought trouble to the land, wiping it out, slaughtering its people, and destroying its ecosystem that took decades to recover. It took her ages to reconstruct that relationship and she was not about to throw it all away now. The sacrifices she had made when joining the Sith were too much to overlook. She wanted to help her old friend, but she had a duty to her people first.</p><p>She looked past his hand, rising to stand on her own, tears having faded from existence. Dried as the hot air baked their stain onto her face. She stared onward with the grace and dignity of a queen.</p><p>“I can not accept your offer,” she said, containing galaxies of diplomacy within her voice. “I ask you to please leave Ossus immediately.” Behind her, the sky was dotted with ships on the horizon speeding towards them. No doubt, her troops, coming to her aid. He would be dead before he had the chance to change her mind. He had to get out of there immediately.</p><p>The young Jedi sighed in defeat, he would be back. Ossus had been home to too much Jedi history to turn a blind eye to it, but he had lost this battle.</p><p>He pushed forward a half-smile, sad to leave behind the person he had once called a friend.</p><p>“Goodbye, Koda,” she returned the sentiment. Their history really was a complicated tangled up mess. So much so that she didn't know if it would ever sort out. Even so, it was bittersweet watching him turn away towards his fighter and cross the pale scarlet dunes.</p>
<hr/><p>“Your Highness,” a man paused in her doorway, a sense of urgency lurking about in his voice.</p><p>“What is it, General?”</p><p>“We have detected an unknown ship entering the Kaarilith airspace in the western sector. Permission to shoot it down?”</p><p>Her mind flicked back to him. Had he really been stupid enough to come back to her kingdom in the same day? She thought back to their time spent training together. He always had the bold plans that she thought would never work, and somehow, they always did. He was coming to attack her kingdom like before, but this time he was there to finish the job.</p><p>“Permission granted.”</p>
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